Dishes every child should learn to cook?

Perhaps you could look at the many ways each vegetable might be cooked.
The many ways eggs can be used for breakfast dishes.
Survival skills using just what is available on the day. 3 or 4 ingredients to teach flexibility in thinking. Treat it as a fun way to feed the family.
Most important teach knife skills and how to stay safe in the kitchen using electrical appliances and that cooking is FUN.

I'm always Xstatic when kids are introduced to cooking. Part of basic cooking for the young is to also encourage and coach them where the food comes from. Is it ethical, mass produced, chemicals, organic,etc? Also Cost effectiveness and budget, shopping list and good old fashioned growing it yourself. Learn early to normalize.
Keep it simple. A child at any age can learn and understand where food comes from. As kids it was normalized behaviour when asked to go dig up the spuds, pull the carrots, fetch the eggs, grow from seed and homekill. Podding the peas, shucking the corn, knowing when to pick sunripened strawberries, tomatoes, fruit.
The key to encourage youngsters to value cooking is Patience! Make it fun and informative.
Getting them to photograph and write their own cookbook is a brilliant way to introduce many levels of appreciation. Document if growing from scratch all the way to the dinner table. In years to come these 'childhood' cook books become history and a journey to reflect and share with their own. Who knows what can be achieved? Imagination & Inspiration knows no boundaries!

What a great post daarhn.
I have nieces & a nephew who love what I cook & I grow all of my own vegetables (apart from the tropical type stuff) & they know exactly where their food comes from, when they stay with me.They are country kids, so they have a good grasp, anyway. I recall away back one (about 2) loved carrots but was a bit anti when she helped me pull a few from the garden . I'm not eating that, it came out of the dirt! Quite funny really, a learning curve!
I have copied many, many recipes from here & lots of other places, into folders & they all have their own folder or two that they want. One's a vegetarian & they all love the vege dishes I have found on here, as do I.
Auntie's recipe books are hot faves!
It's city kids who don't always get the same experiences of growing & harvesting their own food,
I'm all for them getting that experience . somehow.

I remember teaching my step son how to cook - he loved stuffing chicken ("have I got my hand up a chicken's bum?" )and making salads. he used to stand on a chair to help. Was very cute. Now at 25 he is a dab hand in the kitchen, as is his sister, altho she took a little longer to develop a love of food and cooking.

Lovely . good on you for giving him that experience & of course he had his hand up a chook's bum!
You should have asked him at the time . where the hell did he think his eggs came from ;o)

He loved the fact he hand his hand up a chook's bum lol - he must have been all of 4 or 5 used to make a heck of a mess I have a photo somewhere and the glee on his wee face is priceless. Eggs came from the other bottom don't ya know. He was very firm on that point. Not sure where he got it from.

. bless him!

While I could think of a lot more (and certainly different ones) . here we go:
Ten meals your kids should know how to cook before they move out:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11481461